Whitney Leonard: Citizen Reporter

Whitney is currently a Wildlife Intern with NRDC in Livinston, Montana, where she works to protect grizzly bears, wolves, buffalo, and the wild places they depend on. When not in the office, she spends as much time as possible enjoying the abundance of beautiful mountains and wonderful people in Montana.

Previously, Whitney spent the past year in Washington, DC, as Junior Fellow for Energy and Climate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. There she conducted research on a range of environmental policy issues including energy efficiency, domestic alternatives to fossil fuels, and international climate negotiations.

In June 2008 Whitney graduated from Williams College (Williamstown, MA), where she studied economics and environmental studies. While there, she served on the board of the college's outing club and helped co-chair the student environmental organization.

A lifelong environmentalist, Whitney loves exploring the great outdoors with her family and friends, on foot or on skis.

Show full profile

Of Bears and Men: Does the public have a say?

In my first month as an intern with NRDC’s wildlife team in Montana, I had already heard many tales of the complex world of grizzly bear management, where it is safe to say that not everybody sees eye-to-eye with each other, and even fewer people see eye-to-eye with the bears. Adding fuel to the fire, a federal court had recently put grizzly bears back on the endangered species list, as my colleagues Louisa Willcox and Matt Skoglund have discussed.

So it was with quite a bit of curiosity, mixed with a touch of intimidation, that I hopped into a car with NRDC’s three other Montana staff and headed down to Jackson, Wyoming last week, for the latest round of meetings of the Yellowstone Grizzly ...read full post

Comments (0) | November 3, 2009
Pondering Penguins: Thoughts from Antarctica

We’ve all heard that Antarctica is beautiful, that it is icy, and that it is melting fast. All these things are true. But it was not until I traveled there myself, as part of a family trip, that I really started to understand the immensity and complexity of each of these statements.

As the coldest, windiest, highest, driest, and most remote continent, Antarctica shimmers with a stark beauty that is unlike anything I had ever experienced. Huge mountains tower above the coastline, blanketed with ice sheets that glow in the summer sun. From the ice fields, sweeping glaciers pour down the flanks of the mountains, meeting the sea in a tumult of restless ice. Icebergs spawned at these violent junctions drift slowly across the surface of the water, spreading out to the horizon. Seen from the level of a kayak, this scenery is so vast that at times it appears to dwarf all life—especially me, the little paddler. It is awe-inspiring and overwhelming at the same time. ...read full post

Comments (6) | February 17, 2009